Persona Non Grata: Shade In The Light

By Rob Kachluba

It appears that Greece is quickly becoming a new breeding ground of quality original progressive metal thanks to the likes of Mindflow, Fragile Vastness, etc. And now with Persona Non Grata now signed on with the great prog label Sensory, this quintet has created a succint blend of heavy prog metal which is similar in style to all those great bands that came out of Germany in the late 90s like Poverty’s No Crime, Dreamscape and Ivory Tower. The main focus of this album is the driving crunchy mid-paced guitar riffs, which have been underscored nicely by banks of keyboards. Vocalist Bill Axiotis has a penchant to oversing and tends to try to sing a bit to high for his own good. I wish he would stay in his lower register all the time but on more then one occasion he goes too far off in his high warblings. There are a few ballads offered up here as well, which to these ears serve no purpose whatsoever in the grand flow of the album. Having said that, the main problem with this release overall is that while it is good, there is nothing mind blowing or that hasn’t already been done ten years before up for offer. If you do like melodic, semi complex progressive metal with a crunch you will definitely enjoy this, just do not expect to be returning to this album still in a few months time. These guys just don’t have the legs yet.www.myspace.com/personongrata